PPMAI urges government to stop protecting Indian steel sector

PPMAI urges government to stop protecting Indian steel sector at the cost of users Process Plant and Machinery Association of India, apex body representing the Process Plant Manufacturers in the country, has written to Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi and Steel Minister Mr Narnedra Singh Tomar and Union Finance Minister Mr Arun Jaitley against excessive protectionism being given to the steel sector in the country. PPMAI has strongly objected and expressed serious concern at perpetual protectionist environment being created excessively in favour of steel sector in the country without consulting the capital goods and industry sector.

Mr VP Ramachandran secretary of PPMAI wrote that “India is in the process of globalizing its manufacturing base through establishment of Capital Equipment and downstream industries in MSME to generate employment as well as boost Make in India vision through competitiveness of Indian products. However, government must also be understood that this goal is endangered if our industrial and trade policies are based on narrow perspectives of PROTECTIONISM FOR ONE individual industry. India should not be seen as a protectionist nation with unpredictable policies.”

He wrote “If steel industry including stainless steel is favoured with so much of excessive protectionism including curb on imports with anti dumping duties and additional safe guard duties in this competitive world, it will end up as a burden on the economy and scare away investors in other productive Capital Equipment as well as downstream MSME areas which have the potential to run efficiently and grow without support and develop export markets and most importantly generate employment for the youth in our nation.”

Mr Ramachandran said “Government has already provided enough protection to steel industry through high imports duties, Rupee devaluation by over 40% and trade barriers such as anti-dumping or safeguard duties. In a deregulated environment government is taking away capital goods industries right to access the required quality of raw materials and intermediates at competitive prices.”

He aid “Why only steel sector alone which is about 80 -90 per cent family owned business in the country is being taken care of and that too at the prospect of killing the downstream capital goods & MSME sector who are the backbone to make in India theme. The recent proposal by Government to impose Minimum Import Price for steel products without discussing with all the stake holders will further create confusion if arbitrary price is fixed and will hit domestic industry if asked to follow prices.”

He added “The current high import duties are also inverted. this basically protects the steel industry but hurts the business operations of downstream value added producers. thus, the steel industry can face lack of domestic demand if the closure of downstream sector happens in near future. Government must therefore look at the big picture and not sacrifice the Capital Goods and MSME sectors to protect the business interests of steel producers alone.”

He said “PPMAI urges the government to make the duty structure logical and bring down the import duties on semis and intermediates like Hot and Cold rolled carbon steel and stainless steel to the original rate of 5%. if China , Korea & Japan are dumping at low price , start anti dumping investigations instead of further protection through import curbs as Indian Economy is not only steel sector alone ”